The Real Culprit of Our Gasoline Woes: Environmentalists
Every year the price of gasoline rises as refiners switch over to producing “summer” blends of gasoline and every year virtually everyone blames oil companies for the sky rocketing price. However, virtually everyone is dead wrong. Environmentalists are responsible.
What do oil companies do? They spend hundreds-of-billions of dollars each year exploring for, drilling for, and transporting oil. They also spend vast sums refining oil into gasoline. Without oil companies there would be no gasoline, no plastics for myriad products (including appliances, packaging, and pace makers), no electricity generated with oil, and so on.
In other words, our standard of living would be drastically lower.
What do environmentalists do? They prevent drilling in Alaska and offshore, which leads to less supply and higher prices. They impose regulations that force gasoline producers to produce the “summer” blends.
Gasoline prices then rise as supplies dwindle while refiners make the switch over. Prices rise also because “summer” gasoline is more expensive than “winter” gasoline.
Environmentalists have also prevented new refineries from being built in the U.S. through lawsuits and regulations, to the point where no new refineries have been built in over thirty years. As a result, refining capacity has actually declined in the last few decades while demand has increased. This has contributed significantly to the high gasoline prices we now experience.
In short, environmentalists have done everything they can to make oil and gasoline more expensive and our standard of living lower….